The Economist contends that the GM bailout has been a success, despite:
Unions did win some special favours: when Chrysler was divided among its creditors, for example, a union health fund did far better than secured bondholders whose claims should have been senior. Congress has put pressure on GM to build new models in America rather than Asia, and to keep open dealerships in certain electoral districts. But by and large Mr Obama has not used his stakes in GM and Chrysler for political ends.
Oh yeah, except for that (and a few more items they didn’t mention), there’s been hardly any politics in the bailout at all.
They conclude:
Socialists don’t privatise . . .
The lesson for American voters is that their president, for all his flaws, has no desire to own the commanding heights of industry. A gambler, yes. An interventionist, yes. A socialist, no.
The Economist is a serious magazine, so I’ll take this argument seriously. Socialists don’t privatize? Well, that depends.
Socialism is about concentrating power in the right hands. If the socialists have confidence that they will be in power forever, then of course they prefer not to privatize. With most socialist governments that’s true. But it is different in America. In America, the Democrats are at the apex of their power. Sooner or later (probably sooner), Republicans will be in power, and Obama’s nationalized businesses will be privatized.
Given the inevitability of privatization, what would an intelligent socialist do? Wherever possible, he would turn over his nationalized businesses to interests that the socialists will control forever. To wit: the unions. And that’s exactly what have seen. President Obama has taken GM and Chrysler away from their shareholders and creditors and has turned them over to the unions.
Obama is a socialist, but no one ever accused him of being a stupid one.
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